SF Giants shut out by Mariners ace to lose fourth straight game

SAN FRANCISCO — Not even the fireworks could wake up the San Francisco Giants offense this week.

The Giants were blanked by Seattle Mariners ace Logan Gilbert on Tuesday afternoon, when the M’s stomped all over the Giants in a 6-0 win in front of 37,395 for an Independence Day celebration at Oracle Park.

It marked the fourth straight loss for the skidding Giants. Since their 10-game winning streak was snapped on June 22, they’re 4-8 with a 5.11 ERA while getting outscored 62-37 during that span.

“We’re playing hard, things just aren’t going our way,” said third baseman J.D. Davis. “We were on a roll and the last week to eight days it’s been hit and miss. It’s bound to happen.”

They were hoping to see more greatness from Keaton Winn, the 25-year-old rookie right-hander who was making his second career big league start. His first was a beauty: six innings of two-run ball against a tough Toronto Blue Jays lineup. His splitter was electric.

Tuesday, Winn’s signature pitch must’ve looked like a beach ball to the Mariners hitters, who repetitively made loud contact as they knocked him around in four innings of work.

Winn magically avoided serious damage, allowing just three runs on six hits and two walks, but the concern is that his splitter was too often left over the middle of the plate and he struggled to put away hitters.

“Just didn’t have the location today,” Winn said. “It’s a little bit mechanical and just trying to nitpick with it, trying to catch an edge rather than throwing it in the zone and letting it be a strike-to-ball out of the zone.”

A former fifth-round pick in 2018, Winn barely had time to develop with the cancellation of the minor league season in 2020 and Tommy John surgery that kept him out all of 2021. He returned in 2022 throwing harder, with a 96 mph average fastball, and with a newly-developed splitter. Baseball America ranks him as the Giants’ 13th-best prospect.

“Guys up here definitely make you pay for your misses and mistakes,” Winn said. “They’re not invincible, in the same sense. If you execute early and execute pitches where you need to, everyone is vulnerable.”

The Mariners scored one run each in the first, second and third innings. Mike Ford took Winn deep in the third when he threw a flat four-seamer that the onetime Giant roped over the right-field fence.

Ford, who played one game with the Giants last year before they traded him to the Mariners, went 4-for-5 with a home run and two doubles Tuesday to push his OPS to .942 in 25 games with the M’s this season.

Sean Manaea (two innings, one run) and Jacob Junis (three innings, two runs) worked in relief for the Giants.

Offensively, the Giants looked mostly lifeless. Gilbert never walked anybody in a complete-game shutout in which he allowed just five hits, four of them singles. He struck out seven and needed just 105 pitches to do it. The game lasted just 2 hours, 20 minutes.

“Because he’s so tall, analytically, he has a really good extension when he gets out in front, the highest in all of baseball,” Davis said. “It gives hitters less time to react. Everything plays more up.”

The lone bright spot for the Giants was catcher Patrick Bailey throwing out a base-stealer at second base. The rookie catcher has now thrown out 12 runners in 31 opportunities (38%),  fourth-best in the majors.

Alex Cobb takes the mound for the Giants in the series finale against the Mariners on Wednesday.

“The season is a seesaw but we’re still confident in each other,” Davis said. “We’re just going through a little sluggish period right now. A lot of bad travel. Hopefully we can pick up on our sleep schedule, catch up on our off-day Thursday and get things rolling.”